1.
a. ḳáˁar di-ˀérˁeb yeḥóurɛ hes men meṣédeḳ éˀeb di-yemáṭa ŝέri ‘For the house with a central pillar one has to look for big beams, which would reach the sides of the house’ (field notes)
b. šérmhin ľheʰ ebhéten yeˁómer ṣáfror biľá mέsɛ ‘Big trees can have flowers even without rain’ (field notes)
2.
a. mḥámmad eb ˁan áḥmad ‘Muhammed is older than Ahmad’ (Kogan 2015:487)
b. keʰ ḥézɛr ḥéyhe éˀeb yeˁágob ľiẓ̂ˁáb díˀʸheʰ ľíššin boḳ náˁaʰ menáḷ bíŝi ˁeḷhéten ‘When an old person has missing teeth, he likes to bite his own tongue in the place where there are no teeth’ (Bulakh 2024:120-121)
c. ˁag éˀeb ḷaḷ yeṭáreb di-ˁamḳ di-ˁéyyog yebóḷeg kéľmeʰ maˁḳúl’eʰ wa- ṣóuḷɛ heʸh ídhɛn ‘When an old man comes down to people, he speaks wise words, and one has to pay attention to what he says’ (field notes)
The feminine suppletive form is am. See Kogan 2015:487, Müller 1909:347–351.
As recognized long ago (Müller 1909:347–351, Bittner 1918a:54), the Soqotri/Jibbali gender-suppletive adjectives for “big” cannot be separated from the PS designations of “father” (*ˀab-) and “mother” (*ˀimm-), from which, however, they differ in their synchronically attested shapes. The diachronic background of this unusual phenomenon remains enigmatic (Kogan 2015:592).